There have been some exceptional flies on this forum using golden plover hack!e. I have searched the web and apparently they are very scarce. I saw yellow dyed starling ASA substitute. Any opinions or suggestions?

Contact Steve Cooper at Cookshill in the UK. Get on his waiting list and keep the faith. Sooner or later, you might get to the top of the list. Same goes for Snipe and Moorhen / Waterhen. The faster you get on the waiting list, the quicker you might see the hackles.

I'm very lucky in that several years ago, I was able to obtain a full Golden Plover skin and also an set of nice GP wings. My advice to anyone who really wants Golden Plover (or even good snipe, moorhen and other hackles for North Country dressings) is to email Steve Cooper at Cookshill and get on the waiting list as many of the old materials are getting increasingly difficult to obtain. The longer one waits to get on the waiting list, the less chance one has of getting the materials.

I would think that by getting directly on the Cookshill waiting list it will be faster than getting on the waiting list of a US supplier as it would make sense for Cookshill to sell directly at retail to someone than to wholesale the materials to a dealer. In the past, I obtained various North Country materials from various companies and the best (that I've received) has been from Cookshill and Ellis SLater (who died quite a few years ago).

Lastly, in the past year or so, I just learned (who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?) that the correct hackle for a "Snipe & Purple" comes from a "Jack Snipe" and not from the "Common / European Snipe"....... After learning this, Cookshill also was able to supply me a "Jack Snipe" skin awhile back.

Rob was the fellow who actually told me about - "Evidence of which can be seen in the famous north country pattern the Dark Snipe and Purple, which originally prescribed a dressing of Jack Snipe overcovert and not the common snipe that is used today." as stated in the link you mentioned. I was lucky to be able to question Cookshill on the availability of Jack Snipe wings right at the time there was a set available.

I see, Bob.
Read something written by a southern Englishman who visited Scotland and had no success with his Snipe and Purple. He told the locals about this at the pub that evening and they asked him to show his flies. When he did, they laughed at him and told him "no wonder, you have used the wrong coverts. These flies will never kill!".

The seller William from Northern Ireland, who also sells golden plover in that bay, offers jack snipe too. I haven't bought such snipe from him or any other source. If fish are that picky, they can buy themselves.

Luckily for me, the Cheese Country waters where I fish, the trout there aren't so intelligent that they can recognize whether my flies have Common European or Jack Snipe hackles!

Years ago when the Euro was very strong as compared to the dollar, there was a fellow in Europe that bought a whole lot of fishing stuff (waders, reels, boots, etc.) from various US suppliers and then had all the stuff shipped to me for consolidation into one big package. I would then ship the package to him and he would reimburse me with the materials needed to tie the old North Country / soft hackle dressings. He shipped so many things to me, that once he ordered a full Golden Plover skin and when he used PayPal, he inadvertently used my address as the ship to.....drove me nuts for awhile as I coouldn't figure out who sent / why the Golden Plover arrived in my mailbox. When I found out what happened, the guy said to keep it and not send it back to him....luckily for me!

Most of the materials he sent to me came from an elderly gent named "Ellis Slater", who had some of the best materials around for North Country and salmon fly tying. I have a copy of an article from a UK magazine that stated that Ellis Slater bought out the remaining stock of the Chadwick 477 substitute that Frank Sawyer's wife and sister used in tying Sawyer's Killer Bug after the 477 wool was no longer available (also got a small supply of this wool yarn). Thus, for several years, I was able to get a bundle of the materials that are now becoming increasingly scarce.

Since then, I've supplemented my North Country supplies with shipments from Cookshill who has probably the best (in my opinion ) materials available for the old dressings. A couple weeks ago, I emailed Steve Cooper and asked if he had any Egyptian Goose hackles so I could tie a few Marryat dressings.... in my next order were the Egyptian goose hackles (in two shades). For the hackles I use on other soft hackled dressings, Dave Roberts (The Feather Emporium in Madison, WI) has supplied me with (literally) close to 75+ hen skins.

For me, the search to to use, and then dress the old fly patterns, is as much fun as tying and fishing the old dressings and it can REALLY become addictive as some of you know.